Chrome Tips and Tricks; 12 Tips you really NEED to know

Chrome Tips and Tricks; 12 Tips you really NEED to know

We’ll be cover 12 Chrome Tips and Tricks that everybody should know, these range from how to quickly access certain functions, making your browsing experience faster and smoother and how to keep you safe online. These are all chrome tips and tricks picked by hand, ensuring only the best of chrome tips and tricks are listed.

1 – Pin Tabs for Efficient Browsing:

Nowadays people don’t just browse one site at once, theres usually a vast amount of pages that you browse simultaneously. For example, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and GMAIL are all tabs I have open almost all the time. This can get confusing, and often fill your tab bar space meaning you still can’t see all your tabs and have to use the dreaded dropdown. To combat this, you can “Pin” a tab, which reduces the tab size down to only the “Favicon”.

2 – Omnibox:

Googles “Omnibox” is very impressive, it allows you to not only “Search Directly” meaning you can just type your search query into the URL/Address Bar and it will automatically use your favourite search engine to do that query, but also Mathematics, Conversions (Currency + Decimal to Fraction etc), Percentages and much more. Give it a go, and try some maths in your “Ominbox”

3 – Reopen Previously Closed Tabs:

If like me, you get to a point where you just have to many tabs open so you set about getting rid of some. Whilst closing tabs you accidentally closed a tab that was important. Don’t worry, Chrome has you covered and can re-open recently closed tabs. To do this, you simply right click and empty space on the “Tab” bar and click “Re-open Recently Closed Tabs” alternatively you can use the keyboard coammnd “CTRL + SHIFT + T”

4 – Search a Different Search Engine Easily:

If for example, your not doing any old search and are searching for something specific, you can use Google’s omnibox to change your search engine for that specific query. This is really useful when trying to search Youtube for a video or Amazon for a product. Instead of navigating to Amazon/Youtube then doing the query, simply Type Youtube.com / Amazon.com into the Ominbox, Press the “Tab” keyboard button, and then type your query.

Alternatively you can right click the search bar and click “Edit Search Engine”

5 – Navigate Between Tabs Seamlessly:

This is a simple, yet very effective and useful tip to switch between your tabs easily. If you don’t like having to search through your tabs, finding the right one by clicking each tab individually, simply hold control, and then press the numbers on your keyboard to go to a specific tab.

E.g. :

CTRL + 1; Goes to Tab 1

CTRL + 2; Goes to Tab 2

etc.

6 – Highlight Text and Search it:

If your reading an article and don’t understand a word, or you want to know more about a specific thing thats being written about, perhaps theres an acronym that you don’t understand, no matter you can simply highlight that specific part of the article, “Right Click” and then “Search Google for xxxx”

7 – Detatach a Tab:

If say threres something in a tab that you want to focus 100% of your attention on, and want distraction free ways of doing so, you can detatch that specific tab, and make it a whole new window of its own, this then leaves the rest of your open tabs untouched in a separate window. This can be continued until all of your tabs are separate windows. This can be simply done by clicking and holding on the tab, and dragging it away from the rest:

8 – Using Google Chrome Browser Short-cuts:

Google Chrome has a wide variety of simple yet effective keyboard shortcuts to make your experience as simple and seamless as possible. These shortcuts can perform many different tasks to speed up your browsing experience, here are a few of them:

Alt+F – Open the wrench menu (i.e chrome settings menu)

Ctrl+J – Go to downloads window

Ctrl+H – Go to history window

Ctrl+Tab – Navigate Tabs

Alt+Home – Go to home page

Ctrl+U – View source code of the current page

Ctrl+K – To search quickly in the address bar

Ctrl+L – Highlights the URL in the address bar (use this to copy/paste the URL quickly)

9 – Using Google Chromes “AutoFill”:

Google Chrome can make filling in Signup forms and all the rest of those pesky forms that need filling in all the time, and can simply input that repetitive information in for you. All you have to do, is fill it in ONCE on Google Chrome, and then next time you have to do one of the forms, Google will simply input that information for you.

Go to settings -> Options -> Personal Stuff -> Click on the check-box “Enable Autofill to fill out web forms in a single click” -> Click on Manager autofill settings -> Click on ‘Add new Address’ and enter the information.

10 – Using Incognito Tabs to Protect your Privacy:

If your one of the many people nowadays that fears the safety of your privacy online (as do I) then Incognito tabs may be of use to you. Ingonito tabs are basically “private tabs” that stop data such as Browsing and Search history from being logged. This is another simple trick which can be opened from – Ctrl + shift + N or by clicking the “menu” button and choosing “New Incognito Tab”:

11 – Enlarging Chromes Text Size:

Some people may struggle to read the text on some websites pages, not just because of the color, but because of the size of the text and the font used. One little trick that can be used to help you be able to read all the content you want, us by “Enlarging Text Size”. This can be done with a VERY simple Keyboard Shortcut. Simply – CTRL and + to enlarge the Font Size, or CTRL + 0 to return to the default size.

12 – Chrome Commands to Access functions:

Chrome commands can help you access features and functions of chrome, without having to search through your menus and dropdowns until you find the correct function. These functions can be used by typing the following into your Search/Address Bar:

chrome://plugins – See list of all the plugins installed on Chrome

chrome://bookmarks – List all your bookmarks

chrome://downloads – List all downloads

chrome://settings – Open chrome settings

chrome://version – Know about currently installed version of Chrome on your PC

chrome://history – See browsing history

chrome://chrome-urls – Get a list of all the Chrome commands like above